“You have put down the mighty from their seat, and have lifted up the powerless. You have filled the hungry with good things, and have sent the rich away empty.”

So proclaims Mary as she sings about the good works of God in her life.  Yet, what happens when the poor are lifted up and become powerful?  Does this mean that they too will eventually be “put down?”  Or, when the poor, out of the great blessings that God gives them, become rich?  Will they too eventually be sent “away empty?”

One of the things that often fascinates me is the change in status that many individuals often go through in their lives.  What happens to a teacher who was teaching in one of the great schools, and all of a sudden finds him or herself near retirement, no longer being flocked by a group of students, and praised for his or fine intellect? There seems to be a reduction of status here.  The instructor is made low.  Yet, once pride and praise are abandoned, how much more can God enter into the life of this gifted teacher? Furthermore, often times those reduced in such a way to grips with that amazing truth of ecclesiastes, “all is vanity” (Ecc 1:2). 

I am also often struck by the elevation that can happen in the lives of many.  Individuals who do not think much of themselves or their gifts, unbeknowest to themselves, can find themselves elevated and graced to do things they would not even think possible.  There is an elevation here as well.  God takes the individual to places they would not even think to go. 

Perhaps, it is even more moving to think that these “two” people are actually one in the same.  That the upward and downward movement happen continuously in all our lives without exception.  That God elevates us, and then brings us down again.  And then elevates us, and then brings us down again.   That God can take pleasure in both movements, and teach us through both, is an amazing fact of life.

It is also begins to shed light on that Ignatian idea of Indifference before material goods. 

“Thus, as far as we are concerned, we should not want health more than illness, wealth more than poverty, fame more than disgrace, a long life more than a short one, and similarly for all the rest, but we should desire and choose only what helps us more towards the end for which we are created.”

Perhaps this then is a crowning insight of the Magnificat.  That when God both brings down, and when he elevates, it is all for the good of the individual, and for the greater glory of God.